Can Exxon mend its climate-busting ways?

It supports a carbon tax. It admits global warming. But it still has a way to go.

By Daniel Cohan, Rice University

December 29, 2015Updated: December 29, 2015 1:00pm

ExxonMobil chose a bold place and time — meeting with the Houston Chronicle editorial board in early December, as the COP21 Paris Agreement took shape — to reaffirm its support for a carbon tax. In reemphasizing its support, Exxon added its voice to the growing chorus of those who endorse a carbon tax: among them, Tesla's Elon Musk, dozens of oil and gas industry peers, and countless economists.

From the perspective of ExxonMobil and other industry players, a carbon tax has numerous advantages over alternative emissions-reducing policies such as cap-and-trade. That's because, if set in advance with stair-stepping of tax rates, a carbon tax can signal to industry and consumers which investment decisions will pay off in future markets. Cap-and-trade, by contrast, would create a market for government-issued emissions allowances, subjecting industry to whipsawing costs as the prices soar or plummet.

That position, and other recent statements from Exxon, show how far the company has come from the past decades' misleading rhetoric and climate-change-denying campaigns. Now, Exxon acknowledges the scientific consensus that the planet is warming, that manmade greenhouse gases are primarily responsible for that warming, and that urgent action is needed to avert the most worrisome rates of warming in the future. Those bold moves deserve praise.

But the company still isn't doing everything it must to stop climate change.

More by Daniel Cohan

OTHER EXXON activities continue to cause needless damage. Exxon advertising continues to promote as "True" a vision of the year 2040 in which the world relies heavily on natural gas — even though there are numerous other possibilities.

Exxon presents natural gas as what I call a "speckled green" approach to energy. Right now, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind often isn't sufficient to meet electric demand — for instance, when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. It's easy to see how natural gas can provide those boosts.

But it's only one of the ways that we might solve the problem. Others include dispatchable geothermal or biomass energy; batteries or other storage; cuts in demand, generated by switching to more efficient technologies, such as LED lights; and shifts in demand via smart grids, thermostats, and appliances. To proclaim as "True" a 25-year vision so heavily reliant on natural gas, with its associated impacts on land, water, air, and climate, is to sell short the vast potential for other innovation.

Fortunately, a carbon tax like the one that Exxon and so many others endorse would help push the world toward a far cheaper and cleaner energy future than Exxon's ads envision.

For now, natural gas will be a beneficiary of a carbon tax, accelerating its ascendancy to the throne soon to be abdicated by no-longer-competitive King Coal. I do not, however, expect the rein of Prince Gas to be a long one.

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Rooftop solar, as I have profitably chosen for my own house, easily outcompetes retail rates in places like Houston. That's even before accounting for federal subsidies.

On the utility scale, market prices for wind and solar had already fallen to 2.5 and 5 cents per kWh, respectively, by 2014, and continue to plunge further with no sign of bottoming out. Though Energy Information Administration forecasts have badly missed these plunges in prices, market players are confirming the economics of renewables with their investments. The vast majority of new capacity coming online this year has been wind and solar — a stark change from the gas-heavy additions of just a few years ago.

Additionally, there is continued and growing commitment to solar and wind as indicated by Congress voting in mid-December to extend the Production Tax Credit for wind and Investment Tax Credit for solar energy. That's a big deal: Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that this commitment will result in "a 56-percent boost to the industry over five years."

BUT BACK to ExxonMobil. That advertising campaign isn't the only corporate action that doesn't align with its new rhetoric. The company remains a leading member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which opposes a carbon tax. Exxon should join the at least 107 corporations and 19 non-profits that have cut ties to ALEC.

It should also distance itself from politicians who continue to deny the scientific consensus on climate change.

ExxonMobil's statements to the Houston Chronicle and other recent statements bring reason to hope that this influential corporation is reforming its ways. But a long history of missteps and continued funding of misleading ads and ALEC-like groups brings equal reason for caution.

The company has come a long way. And it still has a long way to go.

Daniel Cohan is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University. His research specializes in the development of photochemical models and their application to air quality management; uncertainty analysis; energy policy; and health impact studies.

In preparing this article, he received help from Leah Parks, co-author of the forthcoming book All Electric America.